The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake 4) Read Online Free

“Cayman? Well, he talks a good game. But then—” She smiled. “Don’t we all?”
    “The man’s lower than dirt,” Dahl said. “I’ve met him.”
    Kinimaka made a point of getting her attention. “We’re going up, boss,” he said, indicating the elevators ahead. “You ready?”
    Hayden nodded and gave Dahl a look. The big Swede nodded his readiness. Belmonte and Emma were busy surveying the room and its CCTV cameras, as well as the windows, doors, air vents, and any other means of ingress.
    “Let’s use the elevators,” Hayden said to him with a grimace. “So much easier.”
    “You would think so, Miss Jaye,” Emma said in a reflective tone, “but they’re chiefly just another way of controlling and surveying the masses.”
    Hayden now remembered the most annoying thing about Belmonte. He was a massive conspiracy theorist. Clearly, he’d passed along much of what he believed in.
    “Let’s try them anyway.”
    The large group moved toward the nearest elevator. The secret service insisted on checking it out and then made noises indicating that only the Secretary and themselves should travel on the first one. Hayden acquiesced to keep the peace and filed into a second elevator. Kinimaka jabbed the button for the top floor.
    They traveled up in silence. Weapons were checked. Belmonte pointed out the location of a cleverly hidden camera. Emma stood on tiptoe to plaster chewing gum over it.
    “Always let them know they can’t beat you,” she said with a cheeky little smile.
    Belmonte smiled happily as if to say that’s my girl. Hayden kept her gaze firmly on the flashing floor numbers, trying hard not to think about the weeks she had spent with the British super-thief.
    But, truth be told, they were good weeks. Hard to forget.
    The elevator slowed. The doors slid open. Hayden stepped out and saw Gates with his secret service guard just ahead of them. She peered around the room. Kinimaka padded to her side, voicing a few choice expletives of surprise.
    The entire top floor of the building spread out before them, unfurnished and empty apart from two men clad in combat gear and full-face helmets walking toward them, guns held loosely at their sides.
    Gates was just turning toward her, his face puzzled, when fire and fury erupted around him.
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    Drake broke into Wells’s apartment and then stood back whilst Mai moved in to disable the alarm. They were prepared for the men following them to make a move, but nothing had happened. In less than a minute, they had free reign. Drake remained motionless for a while, studying the layout of the place. A short hallway led to a living room beyond which sat a kitchen and a bedroom. The living room was furnished in a Spartan manner. Nothing existed that didn’t have purpose. There was no sign of a woman’s touch. All the colors were dark, making the corners hard to distinguish—a mirror to the apartment owner’s soul.
    Alicia remained outside the door, using a well-positioned set of hallway windows to her advantage, and set about cataloguing their potential enemies in the street below.
    Drake waved Mai into the bedroom, whilst he took the living room. The irony of the Japanese agent finally making it into Wells’s bedroom after the man was dead was not lost on either of them and they shared a somber look. Mai would be going through more than a few inner torments, Drake thought, since it was she who pulled the trigger.
    He would have put money on it being Alicia. But then, that girl had never failed to surprise him.
    A large oak table dominated the back of the living room. The only item standing on its polished surface was a framed photograph. The picture showed Wells and a few of his army pals, arms over each other’s shoulders, most likely at the end of some secret operation or other. An operation for the British government? Drake wondered. Or for this secret group he and Cayman worked for?
    Drake moved on. The front of the living room held a